It felt nostalgic to Penny that she had returned here after months that had pa.s.sed by. The door was locked which was obvious as after Penelope had left the village, the magistrate had taken the house under his department which was yet to be demolished until something had to be built. But a human village like this, there was no scope for improvement. At least that's what the magistrate and the men one level above the magistrate thought who didn't lend any money but only took hold of the tax of the people by cheating them and keeping them as poor as possible so that they could fill up their own pockets. 

Penny didn't know why Damien wanted to come to have a look at where she used to once live. Turning, she looked at Damien whose eyes were glued on the condition of the house where the house would break by itself with a few more rains being hit on the roof. Especially rains that belonged to the land of Bonelake wasn't gentle to houses that weren't built strongly to only let it fall apart in time. 

Damien who had his eyes on the house saw how tattered the house was. His blood-red eyes not only looking at the house but also taking a look around where he could see from the corner of his eyes at the neighboring houses where some of the families came to take a peek at them. He was well aware of the intrusion that had raised the cautiousness in this village because of his presence. 

But what he hadn't expected was the eyes that Penny received from her fellow villagers. There were contempt and hate directed towards which made him wonder why it was so. With what he had heard about her family, her father had run away from his wife and child with no word. Or had disappeared as Penny had said. But wasn't it a little too much for the villagers to behave this hostile towards Penny? 

"Look she's back," both Damien and Penny could the not so quiet whispers that went near them. There were three women who stood with the baskets that were hitched on the sides of their waist. 

"I thought she wouldn't be back with her mother gone," said another woman, "Look at the strange clothes."

"Those are the slave clothes, aren't they?" murmurs went by as if many could hear the words of the woman that had picked its own wind, "Why do you think she's come here? A girl who has nothing to do with this village, her family not being part of it," Penny didn't mind the words but she hid her face from master Damien whose eyes were on the house but his ears tuned to what the women gossiped about. 

Damien's eyes moved like a phantom, from one side of the wall to another with a joker like a face as if he wanted to hear more on the gossip of what the women at the other side of the house had to speak. When his eyes s.h.i.+fted from the far end of the house to the group of humans who stood there looking at them blatantly until his eyes met his for them to gossip much quieter not knowing he could have understood them with his mere observation by reading their movements of the lips. 

Stupid humans without a pinch of sense in their mind. 

The woman who stood on the right poked the one next to her as if indicating to move and hurry along after noticing the mad man of a vampire smiling at them. Penny noticed this too and didn't know if it was alright to feel good that the women here were scared of something right now who spoke mindlessly without any certain base. 

"Do you know where the magistrate's office is?" asked Damien to her, his eyes falling on hers but Penny was still looking at the women scurrying away. Tearing her eyes away from them, she looked up at him to see a questionable look on his face, "Did their words bother you?" he asked her. 

Once upon a time, it did. More than what she felt now as if she wanted to move away from here with her mother but they had nowhere else to go. People in her though who were humans and not vampires didn't stop in hurting people they could pick on to have their daily sip of gossip and jab for their day to pa.s.s by. 

A smile formed on her lips, "It doesn't anymore," Damien didn't bother to nod or inquire more about it. Penny went to answer his first question, "His office and house is the one which is painted blue in color. The one that we pa.s.sed by after the shop that was closed." 

"The grey shop with a ca.n.a.l of water running behind?" Damien had not just followed straight to look at her house but his eyes had taken in every possible single detail that was in the houses he had come across which also included the people who Penny and he pa.s.sed by as they walked. 

"That's the one," Penny wondered how he was able to catch a look of the ca.n.a.l of water which was hidden by the shop along with the other houses. 

Though Damien had started to walk up the stairs which led to the entrance of the office after reaching the magistrate's office, Penny stood at the ground. Her footsteps had halted before the start of the step.